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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26609920">time heals (but it also destroys)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gubbins/pseuds/gubbins'>gubbins</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Darth Vader Has Issues, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Old Ben Kenobi, The Force, Time Skips, pre ANH but post ROTS</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:54:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,905</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26609920</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gubbins/pseuds/gubbins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There once was a Master and an Apprentice, and they had a story. It got wrapped up in a much, much larger one, but they had their own tale just the same. </p><p>Every story has a Beginning, Middle, and End. You already know the first two, so now it’s time to hear the Middle. </p><p>This is the In-Between, the Heart. This is the part of the tale that isn't commonly told, but is important just the same. This is the effects of time. </p><p>This is when Obi-Wan became Ben and Anakin became Vader.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Obi-Wan Kenobi &amp; Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>time heals (but it also destroys)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hey so... this was a random idea that just popped into my head out of nowhere today, so i decided to just type it up. basically, i was thinking... obi wan eventually finds purpose after ROTS, and i feel like vader goes on to just... well, he's not exactly proud of what happened. anyways. yeah. one shot time!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>~ </b>
</p><p> </p><p>Vader arose with stinging skin and blurry eyes. </p><p>(<em> He did not awake, for that would mean he’d been asleep.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Vader does not sleep, not anymore. He cannot.  </em>
</p><p><em> It is one of the many things he lost in the fire </em>) </p><p>He was in pain. The wounds on his face burned, for they had yet to scar. Even in the suit, the suit that was supposed to keep him alive, everything <em> hurt </em> . The injuries he’d suffered on Mustafar were very much carved into his skin, and even if he couldn’t see them ( <em> he’s forgotten what his body looks like </em>) he knew they would never disappear. </p><p>They were a reminder. Of pain, anger, loss. Of death. </p><p>(<em> Vader has been running from these things for so long. He is not fast enough. They always catch up to him in the end.<br/></em></p><p>
  <em> And when they do, Vader gladly lets them take him, for they are what give him power. Suffering gives him strength, the Darkness is his fuel. That is what his Master taught him.  </em>
</p><p><em> Vader doesn’t think of Skywalker’s Master, the one who taught love, balance, and peace. The one who taught the Light </em>)</p><p>Vader had seen so much death. These last two years, he’d been the bringer of it. Death slid from his palms and claimed his enemies, and it ate them up until only Vader was left. For he is the strongest of them all. </p><p> </p><p>~ </p><p> </p><p>Ben Kenobi woke up that day, with his mind full of memories. He dreaded sleep nowadays, because when he slept, he did not dream. </p><p>He remembered. </p><p>Ben remembered that other life, the one where he wasn’t alone. The one where he had his friends and family, the one where he had his brother. </p><p>Ben had been on Tatooine for two years now, and he still hadn't gotten used to the quiet. The quiet was somehow always screaming at Ben, full of whispers and taunts and memories. Ben, <em>Obi-Wan,</em> was a child of war, and friends, and <em> life. </em>Tatooine is a planet of solitude, slavery, and silence. </p><p>Anakin, loud and powerful as he was, was a child of Tatooine. He was used to the quiet. He was used to watching instead of speaking. Good at it, even. Ben remembered back when Anakin had first been brought to the Temple, and it had taken him months to speak more than the required sentences when talking to people. He always forgot to speak, forgot that he was <em> allowed </em>to speak. His eyes would dart back and forth, between a person and the door, always looking for an escape should he need one. </p><p>Always looking for a way out. </p><p>(<em> Obi-Wan had learned to accept destiny long ago.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Anakin always tried to fight it, prevent it.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Anakin always tried to fight everything. He pushed at the limits of the universe, and they pushed back, until Anakin had Fallen under their weight) </em>
</p><p>Ben knew there was no way out. And though he had made peace with that fact (<em> peace is a poem, a story, one that dreamers tell when they run out of hope, one that the preachers preach and the singers sing, one that nobody will find. Peace does not exist) </em>, it was hard for him to think about things such as destiny. </p><p>What was his destiny? To live some form of life, when his Brothers and Sisters had been ripped so cruelly from theirs? Walk the dunes when they would no longer move? What was Ben Kenobi, when Obi-Wan was lost with the rest? </p><p>He asked, <em> Is that my fate, to have fallen from grace and lost everything? Act as a ghost until I truly become one?  </em></p><p><b> <em>You have not fallen from grace, </em> </b> something replied. <b> <em>You have held onto it. Lonely is the life of the graceful, as there are so few of them left. </em> </b></p><p> </p><p>~ </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Five years after he lost it all, after he was betrayed and ruined and took the name <em> monster </em>, the fires of Mustafar still haunted Vader. </p><p>When he closed his eyes, he smelled smoke and felt the flames. They crawled up his body, his tired, broken body, and they ate him alive. He watched through teary eyes as his greatest enemy (<em> his brother </em>) turned away, leaving Vader to die. He watched as Kenobi took the weapon of Skywalker, took his droid and his wife, and left. </p><p>Vader had gone to Mustafar many times since then. Those horrible memories were awakened when he returned, and they fed his thirst. They built up his power, power that he would use to bend and mold the galaxy as he saw fit. </p><p>Some might tell him the world doesn’t work like that. But Vader would <em>make </em> it work like that.</p><p>(<em> “You’re not all powerful.”  </em></p><p>“<em>Well I should be!” </em>) </p><p>Vader would be. He would tear this galaxy to shreds until it became what it should be. Until it became a world worth keeping. This galaxy would break and it would bruise, and then it would be born anew. </p><p>It would be better. Better than what they were given, better than what Vader could provide. Better than Vader, for he knew he was nothing worth keeping or protecting.</p><p> </p><p>~ </p><p> </p><p>Ben Kenobi looked out across the Jundland Wastes.  The sand dunes stretched out, and they looked like they went on forever. They reminded him of the Force, boundless and consuming. The dunes had brought him a sense of calm the last five years. </p><p>Ben, sitting on the ground just outside his hut, reached out into the world. </p><p>The Force was heavy. Not as heavy as the day all was lost, but heavy just the same. It bore down on his shoulders, looking for something to hold onto. Ben welcomed it gladly. </p><p>Eyes closed, Ben swam through it. One presence called out to him, even now. Where it used to be a sun, so bright you had to turn away lest you’d go blind, it is now inky Darkness. A big, black moon had covered the presence, like an eclipse of sorts. </p><p>But in an eclipse, the sun comes out again. This is where Vader and a sun are different. Even when it is covered, the sun peeks through, teasing a return to the sky. Ben knew not to hope for such things with Vader. Anakin, Walker of Skies, destined for something bigger than any galaxy, was now lost. He had been for years.</p><p>Ben was getting better at thinking about that without hurting. </p><p>He turned away from the Dark moon of <em> Vader </em>and instead, looked at something closer to home. </p><p>Not a sun, but a star. </p><p><em> Luke</em>. </p><p>The star of Luke Skywalker was bright. Not blinding like his father, not fiery like his sister (who Ben made sure to check in on through the Force from time to time), but… something else entirely. A kind of brightness that washes away everything else until all you know is Light. Luke Skywalker’s star would fill the dark skies of the Force with brightness again, Ben was certain. </p><p>Leia would bring order. Luke would bring brightness. </p><p>Ben would find purpose, somehow.</p><p> </p><p>~ </p><p> </p><p>Seventeen years after her death, and Vader still couldn’t go a day without thinking of her. Of Padmé. </p><p>She had been a queen, and she’d chosen Anakin, a freed slave, of all people. </p><p>(<em> She did not choose Vader. She hated Vader in the end, but she had never stopped loving Anakin </em>) </p><p>She was his wife, his angel, his everything. Vader would’ve, <em> could’ve </em>, given her everything. But she had refused. </p><p>(<em> “Anakin, you’re breaking my heart” </em>)</p><p>But didn’t she know she was breaking his? They had the chance to fix everything, make the galaxy into something better, and she was throwing it away? How dare she? As much as he loved her, Vader had hated Padmé then, for she could not see as Vader did. The possibilities were endless! </p><p>Vader would break this galaxy into pieces, and Padmé would mold those pieces into something beautiful, like her. </p><p>Everything had been beautiful, once. But then it became ugly and rotten and Dark. Back then, Vader had been cracking and slowly, oh so slowly, Falling. The Darkness had slipped through until there was nothing else. </p><p>It was power, it was strength, it was his fuel, but it was also his cage. Vader could bring armies to their knees, destroy all those who stood in his path. He could shake the universe with his might. But he had never been free. </p><p>(<em> Vader had been eaten alive by that Darkness, and then he brought it to everyone else. Vader has destroyed this galaxy, not into something better, but something pathetic and defeated and lost.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Just like Vader-  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> No.  </em>
</p><p><em> Like Anakin </em>) </p><p>Vader had learned many lessons in his life. When he was still Anakin, he learned many truths of the Darkness. But it wasn’t until the Darkness had actually taken Anakin and twisted him into Vader, did he learn the biggest truth of them all. </p><p>(<em> Vader had been a slave once, a slave named Ani who was a person, no matter what the masters said. He was a person who had hopes and dreams, a person with a fate he couldn't begin to understand </em>) </p><p>The Darkness was the worst slaver there is. For unlike other masters, it promises freedom- and only brings chains. </p><p>Vader was born with nothing. He gained everything. He lost everything. And now he had nothing. </p><p>Anakin might still live, somewhere deep inside him. Vader didn’t know how Anakin would die, in the Light or in the Dark, or something in between. </p><p>But he knew that one day, <em> Vader </em> would die broken and shattered and <em> lost </em>. </p><p> </p><p>~ </p><p> </p><p>Ben Kenobi knew that his time must be coming to an end, if not now, then soon. Luke was almost eighteen, and grew more powerful by the day. Soon, they would need to act, Ben was sure of it. He didn’t know how, exactly, or when. Ben couldn’t see the future, he could only live each day until said future became reality.</p><p>(<em> Mace and his shatterpoints had always been better at this sort of thing. But Mace wasn’t here, he hadn’t been here for a long while </em>)</p><p>Those last seventeen years, Ben had learned to watch and to listen. He’d learned the ways of the Desert. Tatooine’s lessons had become engraved in him, taking the place of the lessons of a Jedi. Those teachings were waiting, just like him. Waiting for the day everything came to pass. </p><p>And when the future became the present, Ben would be ready. He would find Luke and teach him the ways of the Force, just as he did Luke’s father. Ben had always been drawn to Skywalkers, as they were enthralling. They were the axis on which the world spun, bright and powerful and chaotic. Ben was the one who watched over them, waiting for when they got tired from bearing such a heavy weight. And when they did, Ben would be there to guide them, ready to show them the way. </p><p>Ben Kenobi had taken on many titles in his life. Youngling, Initiate, Padawan, Knight, Master, <em> Wizard </em>. They all represented different versions of him, ones that waned with time and made way for something new. </p><p>He was born as Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Youngling. Obi-Wan was a Jedi, a Master, a legend. </p><p>He would die Ben Kenobi, a Wizard of the Wastes. Ben was a hermit, a myth, a ghost. </p><p>And he would meet his destiny. He would find purpose.</p><p>He would find <em>peace. </em> </p><p> </p><p>~ </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>so. um. yeah. I don't really know what to say, so... hopefully you liked it, please tell me your thoughts in the comments! </p><p>tumblr is @ayo-cowbelly, come hang if you want :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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